Saturday, June 26:
Night of brooding, going over things again and again; holding tight to one resolve: that R. should know nothing of my torturing thoughts. The only escape from tormenting, irrepressible worries is to have a firm purpose. With this I at last fell asleep.
In the morning R. had breakfast with me and said that he had been thinking a lot yesterday about Joan of Arc, and what a pity it was that this subject, with all its sublime naïveté, was beyond the reach of art, since the world with which this heroine came into conflict is too despicable.
I find it easier to get up today, and the day’s activities quell my restless thoughts. Worked with the children in the garden and also ate there. Much pleasure in the flourishing of the little ones; in them I am given the likeness of the greatest happiness. If I did not have the torment of Hans, whose lot could even be compared with mine? How, in blissful innocence, the days pass! No noise from the world reaches us, here love alone rules supreme. I thank the God who gave me this: may He forgive me for having brought suffering to another being!
R. now always works in the mornings. In the afternoon he wrote his letter to the Berlin Academy: this, calm and serious, constitutes, in its outline of his position, the sharpest criticism of conditions in Germany. I remain in the garden and write to M. Muchanoff.
The doctor came, and R. found an opportunity to remark to him what a great pity it is that Switzerland has no better aim in life than to imitate Paris; instead of having some capable person set up a technical college in Lucerne, they build one hotel after another, and the women run around made up absurdly to look like Parisians. On receiving the answer that such a little place would never be able to compete with Paris, R. replied forcefully: “It would be something different. What does it want with all this stupid luxury? It should act according to its needs, have its own character, but instead of that the rich gentlemen here prefer a nation of tricksters, just lying in wait for the three months in the year when they can fleece foreigners.”
At seven o’clock I enter R.’s room, and he is quite beside himself with joy at my appearance. We drink tea downstairs, and upstairs continue reading Eckermann-Goethe.